Robin Sharpe is a writer of proven literary merit, as judged by the Supreme Court of Canada no less.

I heartily endorse that verdict. He is indeed a damn fine writer, imaginative and linguistically inventive. Whether Sharpe is conjuring up a primitive paradise or a post-apocalyptic dystopian hellhole, his talented evocations are dotted with freshly minted words and striking images. He is wryly humorous and ironic, with a perceptive eye for the hilarious tragedy that is “the human condition” – whether visited through individual foibles and monstrosities or the bizarre, confused, mishmash of dimly understood myths, rites and traditions we use in order to prise some sort of meaning out of the wild chaos of nature and circumstance.

He is both funny ha-ha and funny peculiar. The humour, black as sin, is as colourfully satirical as that of his less subtle namesake Tom Sharpe at his best, in Riotous Assembly, and as outrageous as Iain Banks in The Wasp Factory.

His writing is humane, good-hearted and moral, too, without ever being moralistic – qualities to which those who do go in for moralising will inevitably be blind on account of his disturbing subject matter. And he is honest: the man’s truthfulness emerges clearly in his very candid non-fiction.

But none of these admirable qualities have been anything like as significant to the world at large as the most obviously “outstanding” (so to speak!) feature of Sharpe’s writing: it is blatantly, patently, pornographic. One may meander agreeably through many chapters of less urgent delights than the carnal, but engagement with the latter, when it comes, cums. His prose, while always written with style and sophistication, is what many would condemn as not merely pornographic but also deeply “perverted”. Sharpe takes us into the world of the notorious Marquis de Sade, with whippings and beatings. Most dangerously of all, it is a world heavily populated by sexy young boys.

Hence the unusual interest in literary criticism taken in Sharpe’s case by the criminal courts in Canada – and it is also one of the reasons why Heretic TOC is blogging about him. It all began in 1995 after Sharpe had travelled abroad, visiting Dr Edward Brongersma, famed Dutch boy-love activist and former senator. Sharpe’s baggage was checked by Customs on his re-entry to Canada from the Netherlands. They found a collection of computer discs containing text titled BoyAbuse. This writing, of which he was the author, was alleged to constitute child pornography and Sharpe was prosecuted for possession. The charges also included visual material found at his home but it is the literary side that will concern us here.

Sharpe argued that the law in question targeted the political advocacy of pederasty and served little purpose in protecting children from sexual abuse. Representing himself, he scored a remarkable victory in the British Columbia Supreme Court, successfully claiming that under Canada’s Bill of Rights it would be unconstitutional to deprive him of the private possession of his own thoughts as expressed in writing. The prosecution appealed. The charges in respect of his writings were eventually dismissed in the Supreme Court of Canada in 2001 when it was successfully argued on his behalf that his work had artistic merit. A professor of English compared his written works to “transgressive expression” as seen in Sade’s 120 Days of Sodom.

It was something of a pyrrhic victory, though, because the verdict generated a storm of political outrage leading to the passing of a more restrictive new law in 2005 that made the possession of written child pornography permissible only for those deemed to have a “legitimate purpose related to the administration of justice or to science, medicine, education or art”, and if it did not pose “an undue risk of harm” to minors. Written child pornography was defined as writing that “advocates or counsels” sexual activity with a person under 18 or “whose dominant characteristic is the description, for a sexual purpose”, of illegal sexual activity with a person under 18.

Whether “a sexual purpose” can be considered the “dominant” characteristic of Sharpe’s writings depends on how alert one is to their other qualities. His work has much else to offer, in my view, at least in some of the more ambitious pieces. Literary S/M sex definitely isn’t my thing but the book Pagunan Masks: An Ethnofiction, to take one example, is really clever stuff and I found it fascinating. I should add that I would not have enjoyed or appreciated anything that appeared to revel in a callous or cruel attitude to children; on the contrary, I would have been appalled.

Sharpe has said this about his work, which strikes me as a reasonable summary based on the limited amount I have read:

“Most of my BoyAbuse stories have sadomasochistic themes but with little violence, violence in the sense of coercion, aggression and injury. The theme is fortitude, usually willing, for some purpose. They are simple tales of flogging, fun and fortitude appealing to certain fetishes including my own.”

Sharpe’s lengthy legal battles over written pornography have long been over, but his travails are more significant today than ever, as moral entrepreneurs worldwide continue to eat away at freedom of expression in the name of child protection. Back in the early days of legislation against child pornography, most of the countries going in for these new laws focused solely on photographs and films. Laws against “obscene” literature had long been in existence but these were widely falling into disrepute and disuse and were not extended to deal with child protection. Canada was an exception. Although it had a remarkably low age of consent, at 14, since raised to 16, its approach to freedom of expression with respect to written child pornography was far less liberal.

The trend, though, is for greater security, surveillance and suppression to be deployed in endless “wars” against a range of “risks”. Paedophilia now vies with terrorism for top spot in the charts, both having long displaced first communism and then drugs as the great evils of our times.

For this reason, we can expect the written word to come under greater pressure everywhere, with dire implications for everyone’s freedom.

It has a clause banning the possession of “paedophile manuals”, defined in the Bill as “any item that contains advice or guidance about abusing children sexually”. Maximum sentence is three years.

Could Sharpe’s work be construed in this way? I don’t think it could, in fairness, from what I have seen of his writing; but fairness is unfortunately not what we can expect in the current climate. So, what about Heretic TOC even mentioning Sharpe’s work by way of recommending his literary talents or providing online links to his work? Would this fall foul of the new law? Who knows how broadly it will be applied? What is certain, though, is that it will have a chilling effect on expression: valuable thoughts will go unexpressed through self-censorhip out of entirely justified fear of the consequences.

Another reason for mentioning Robin Sharpe at the present time is a more sentimental one. Robin, as I shall now begin to call him, is old and very unwell. He is 81. He suffered a terrible blow earlier this year after being in hospital for eight months, which was doubtless bad enough in itself. He was illegally evicted from his home in Montreal when his landlord expected him to die. All his possessions were stolen or trashed, including his entire library. He took refuge back on the West Coast where he has family and friends. He is now in the process of taking his former landlord to court.

It is high time Robin’s great fighting spirit and literary talents were acknowledged here, and I am pleased to do so. Robin and I have corresponded from time to time. He kindly wrote to me when I was behind bars, and I returned the compliment when he suffered a similar fate.

He is too ill to do anything quickly but in a sense he is an old man in a hurry, anxious to see his work published before he dies. Unfortunately, there are huge problems with this. One, obviously, is finding a publisher willing to take the risk of being labelled a pornographer and charged under either traditional obscenity law or newer child protection law. Another is that in his generosity Robin has long made all of his work freely downloadable from his two websites, primarily at robinsharpe.org and also with some titles at robinsharpe.ca. While there are no doubt those among his many readers who would like to possess bound volumes of his writings, that too would be worrying on legal grounds for many (depending where they live) and publishers are unlikely to be persuaded they could cover their costs on such a project, never mind make a profit.

Robin has had a few volumes printed privately and he might be able to send copies to those who contact him via his websites. As a limited item (and perhaps hand-signed if you are lucky) they will have a value beyond the words they contain.

One aspect of this added value is the illustrations. Robin’s career was as a town planner, which may have given an outlet for his skills in drawing maps and plans, as demonstrated on the back cover of his novella Blood & Semen. Another string to his bow is wood-carving, beautiful large photographs of which form an integral part of Pagunan Masks. This book is about an imaginary primitive tribe and their discovery by westerners. The chapters, or parts, of the book feature the various masks worn by the tribe members for their rituals: Lizard Mask, Demon Mask, Death Mocking Mask, and so on. Each has a special purpose and history, skilfully woven into the story and illustrated in an “ethnographic” account with close parallels to early attempts at anthropological writing, which he seeks both to satirize and draw upon for allegorical purposes.

I was going to finish at this point but an item in the current issue of the London Review of Books absolutely demands at least an additional paragraph or three. It is a review of A Sentimental Novel, by the French writer Alain Robbe-Grillet, published in an English translation in May. Judging by this review, it makes Robin’s writing look about as sadistic and perverted as Harry Potter. Reviewer Adam Shatz describes it as a work of “unrelenting and graphic sadism in which women – or rather, barely pubescent girls – exist to be raped, tortured and murdered”. The work features “a harem of child sex slaves…violently deflowered, in scenes described with Robbe-Grillet’s obsessional precision: murderously large dildos, seats made of nails, sliced and grilled breasts”.

But Robbe-Grillet was never arrested and jailed. On the contrary, long acknowledged as a leading intellectual, he had been elected to the prestigious Académie française in 2004. Un roman sentimental appeared in 2007, shortly before his death the following year. This particular book was not well received, to be sure. Shatz tells us it was “treated with derision”. But now we find it is being respectably republished in the UK with no calls as yet, it seems, for the publishers to be clapped in irons; nor has there been any controversy so far as I am aware over LRB and some of the upmarket national newspapers legitimising it through their reviews. Funny old world, as they say!

Let’s not forget, though, that even Robbe-Grillet’s “sentimental” novel is just words. He didn’t kill anyone; like many other writers, he may have used his work cathartically, to purge his inner violence rather than victimise anyone with it. Meanwhile, people are actually being killed. Children are being ripped to bits in Gaza and deliberately starved on a mountain in Iraq. Is it because their killers have been reading too much Sharpe and Robbe-Grillet? Somehow, I doubt it.

You misunderstand the quote. It isn’t about wrongful convictions. It is about punishing those known to be innocent, to be able to punish actual wrong doers. It is not talking about mistakes but the intentional.

I don’t understand how you are fine with the government initiating prosecution (with an AoC) but not parents. Can you explain how an AoC is superior to parental protection?

…Objectivity? I’d want the system that was most accurate and I think we can do better than ‘leave it to the parents’ in that regard. If I’m wrong, I’ll reconsider.

Also, age doesn’t have to be the only issue. I simply want the method which is right most frequently. It doesn’t have to be age based – age is merely the simplest method I could think of. I’m sure a Futarchist government could do much, much better.

[T.O’C ADDS: ANOTHER SLIGHT GLITCH. THIS POST IS A REPLY BY JAMES TO “DISSIDENT” IMMEDIATELY BELOW. I’M NOT GOING TO MOVE IT. IF I KEEP DOING THAT UNDER MY NAME ALL THESE COMMENTS ARE GOING TO LOOK AS THOUGH WRITTEN BY ONE EXTREMELY SCHIZOPHRENIC PERSON!]

Good for you defending “Socialist” and the relevant defense of the essence of Feminism. Flipping a gender hierarchy is insufficient. Freedom is merely privilege extended unless enjoyed by one and all.

Also, I surmise that you’re Russian. Are you pro-Soviet?

The Trotskyites refer to the process as ‘entryism’ but I find they’re one of the least parasitic practitioners of the method. At least when they do it it’s a temporary bid for new members. Some groups instead try to kill the intellectual honesty of a movement and animate its corpse. It’s not pretty.

‘“complicit with their abuser”’
The fuck does that even mean? I’ve spent a while pondering it and it leaves me as stumped as the Christian concept of “purity”. Could you explain what they’re trying to say here.

Zionism is also an example of a movement’s value drift. From “unite our culture and get the fuck out of super-oppressive Europe” to “Conquer (inferior) gentiles and force them into submission”. Old-school Zionism wasn’t even exclusively right wing. Quite a few of the first Zionists were also Socialists.

A catechism isn’t comprehensive or set in stone. It’s just meant to ensure a minimum level of consistency. It’s worth noting that the primary user of this method, the Catholic Church, has existed stably for two millennia and is currently the largest organisation in the world by membership and it’s pretty damn rich. Say what you will about it’s doctrines but the Catholic Church raises being-an-organisation to an art form.

Alas, you surmised my nationality incorrectly… I’m as American as apple pie, baseball, and reality TV 🙂 I’m also most definitely not pro-Soviet. Their system was a statist form of capitalism, in no way harmonious with the classless, stateless, and moneyless economy of social ownership of the industries as envisioned by Marx and Engels.

“Complicit with their abusers” is a cop-out excuse to ignore any statements from individuals who insist they were not victimized by a certain type of activity if those claims go against popular socio-cultural orthodoxy. The dismissal of any underager who says they were not “abused” or harmed by a mutually consensual intergenerational sexual contact is similar to how the word of white women who had consensual sexual contact with black men in the old South were likewise dismissed.

I didn’t mean pro-Soviet in a general sense. I know that many Russians prefer the old Soviet Union to modern day Russia. Of course, since you aren’t Russian and are taking the outside view, you may not be considering it that way.

THE FOLLOWING LONG COMMENT IS NOT FROM ME BUT IS A REPLY FROM “DISSIDENT” TO JAMES. “DISSIDENT” AT FIRST POSTED IT AS AN ORDINARY REPLY BUT THEN, BEFORE IT HAD GONE THROUGH MODERATION, ASKED ME TO PUT IT AS A SEPARATE THREAD, AS A REPLY OF SUCH LENGTH WOULD BE VERY HARD TO READ IN A THIN COLUMN. [NOTE, THOUGH, THAT YOU CAN ALWAYS CUT & PASTE FOR AN EASIER READ IN WORD IF THIS EVER HAPPENS.]

Hey again, James,

Thank you for your response. I certainly have no problem with your firm planting of the flag on the stance of genuine feminism, and refusing to retreat from that – or any other label whose principles you support – due to unsavory elements who have latched onto the term as time passed. The same thing happened, of course, to the term “socialist”… a term I have refused to abandon simply because of the many negative tendencies who have claimed the banner of that label over the course of the 20th century.

But right there, it makes me think of another important thing. We must endeavor to not allow any movement to become so broad that it drifts away from the *basic* set of principles its founders intended it to adhere to. This doesn’t mean that any movement shouldn’t grow and adapt as time passes; no doctrine should become a dogma that is etched in stone for eternity. It just means that the essence of its principles must be maintained through thick and thin.

As you noted, no group should be expected to strictly adhere to a set of beliefs in any given movement; if this happened, the movement in question would be unable to grow and improve as time marched on. For instance, there are certainly differences in the thinking of individuals within socialism and the youth liberation movement, both of which I support and follow. However, I believe that in order to rightfully use those labels, all members of the movement must be in *basic* agreement with the principles (as opposed to absolute agreement on every single detail).

As I understand it, the basic principles of mainline feminism as it was founded are: female empowerment; opposition to inequality based on gender, both in the social and professional realms; freedom of female social and sexual expression; and opposition to hierarchical systems that tend to breed inequality and force gender-based roles on individuals. I support all of that too, fully and without compromise. Nothing in that essence remotely suggests a prescription for misandry, opposition to male sexuality, or the demonization of heterosexuality in general; nor a simple inversion of gender in the prevailing hierarchically based economic & political system. Hence, I think each of us who adhere to the founding essence of feminism have every right – even a responsibility – to tell the misandrists who have hi-jacked the term that they have no right to call themselves “feminists.” Nor to honor their hi-jacking by referring to their brand of political misandry as a legitimate “form” of feminism.

Similarly, for this reason I stood up to the tendency among a new breed of Russian fascists in the late 1990s – who were overtly oppressive of women and repressive of civil rights – to refer to themselves as “liberal democrats,” as they were doing. These people in no way supported anything remotely connected to the basic principles and ideological essence of liberalism and its semi-successor over the past decade and a half, progressivism, and those who genuinely did had every right to oppose their usage of the term. I do the same when it comes to instances of Leninists, Trotskyists, social democrats, or any stripe of totalitarian who refer to themselves as “Marxists.” The basic foundation of Karl Marx’s principles as written by the man himself, or that of his main ideological collaborator, Frederick Engels, in no way supported any of those above tendencies, but taking the name served the purposes of these other tendencies in various deceptive or intellectually dishonest ways.

As you said, there is no doubt that certain unsavory elements will use the political strategy of latching onto a basically noble and progressive movement that has come of age and achieved a degree of mainstream recognition and acceptance, and claim to be a part of it, or an off-shoot of it, etc., in order to advance often antithetical agendas. This is what Andrea Dworkin and her shameful ilk did in regards to feminism during the 1970s, and what her ideological descendants continue to do today. Calling themselves what they actually are wouldn’t have gone over well with anyone in the public – let alone genuine feminists – so they insinuated themselves into a movement whom they felt would be accepting of any women who were seeking power and gender-based revenge, which they were confident would be mistaken for the concepts of equality and empowerment. Once the 1980s got into gear, they also quickly and cunningly latched onto the victimology and PC trends, to make any men who opposed women who claimed to be victims and oppressed for any reason whatsoever look like misogynistic and/or heartless jerks; and to color any fellow women who opposed them out of principle as “traitors to their gender” or “complicit with patriarchy and male predation.” In fact, the latter is similar to how underagers who insist they were not victimized or harmed in any way by a mutually consensual sexual relationship with an older person are regularly denounced as “complicit with their abuser” or as suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, etc.

The above is likewise similar to the tactic of how Zionist, right-wing Jews have adopted victimology and ‘revenge politics’ to become a repressive force of terror against Palestinians in Gaza, and to use their powerful American lobbyist group AIPAC to shame and cajole any American politicians who want to run for office into supporting absolutely anything the Israeli government does, and to rationalize it as “defense” against their enemies (read: anyone who stands against the ethno-centric hegemony goals of Zionism). Due to the past status of Jews as oppressed and victimized minorities, the right-wing Jewish Zionists have used the moral capital they believe they have “earned” to denounce any non-Jewish person who opposes the Israeli government’s abominable, power-brokering actions as “Anti-Semitic”; and to deride any progressive of Jewish heritage who opposes Zionism and ethno-centrism out of principle as a “self-hating Jew.”

Hence, the importance of calling out anyone who misuses a label and/or who latches onto a movement that has an agenda which taints or goes against the basic principles that the label and movement in question is supposed to adhere to. To clarify again, this doesn’t mean that every adherent of the label or member of the movement has to precisely agree on every conceivable point, but they certainly should not harbor agendas or intentions that besmirch or twist beyond reasonable recognition the very essence of what the label or movement was intended to be all about at its inception.

No glitch at WordPress but your question tells me there must have been an email glitch. Or haven’t you checked your email since yesterday? You wanted the location of your post to be moved. My email to you dealt with this issue. Get back to me (preferably by email to me here: tomocarr66@yahoo.co.uk ) if no message has reached you.

While we’re on the topic of pedophile-friendly books, I’d like to recommend Fledgling by Octavia Butler. I first read it when I was twelve and I’ve reread it several times. It’s a great book – as are all her works.

The protagonist is vampire-human hybrid who’s village was brutally destroyed. During the novel she recovers memories she lost in the attack and reestablishes connections with her family and her species as a whole. She also also initiates romantic/sexual relationships with six men and women….

….Which is a little odd because she is as physically developed as a ten year old human. I mean, the book claims that she’s in her fifties and vampires just age slowly, but I suspect that’s in there to make the book seem less pedophilic. I distinctly remember one very sensual scene where she seduces an elderly woman. This is not your typical fantasy novel.

The book tackles themes such as race, family, duty, free will, sex and justice. Of course, you could just read it for the semi-graphic sex scenes. I wont judge 🙂

This is a big reply, so I’ll put it in as a new thread across full page width.

When I said all the major ethical systems have something to offer, it evidently (judging by your response) sounded merely platitudinous; so I should elaborate.

What I had in mind was just three approaches to ethics that modern philosophy tends to characterise as major: virtue ethics, deontology and consequentialism. Others schools, notably pragmatism, might be considered major, but to go beyond the core Big Three risks straying beyond pure ethics i.e. beyond an attempt at rational judgement as to what conduct is right and good (pragmatism and religion-based ethical schemes mix the ethics with other things).

The reason I think each of these three is important is that each offers a distinct and indispensible perspective which usefully complements the other two even though the systems are in some ways significantly at odds with each other. I would characterise their respective contributions roughly thus, although they all aim at maximizing Good in their different ways:

• Virtue ethics considers good in terms of what a good person would do (Individual good)
• Deontology is about reciprocal duties, hence about social relations (Interpersonal good)
• Consequentialism attempts to maximize good as a total aggregation (Total good)

It is probably no accident that the earliest (virtue) approach was the most limited in range, the next (duty) extended to mutuality of obligation in terms of “social contracts”, while the most recent (Bentham’s utilitarianism and later “consequentialist” refinements) includes qualification of total utility via the weighing of pros and cons, or Cost-Benefit Analysis, in a holistic way.

Quantification, indeed, offers seductive possibilities in our modern times, when sophisticated tools are increasingly available for the purpose. They offer the allure of mathematical exactitude and compelling rationality. Perhaps some exciting young ethical entrepreneur (I can think of one possible candidate!) will come up with an Ethics Engine: just feed in your ethical problem by selecting the key elements from multi-choice options, set a few algorithms running that will crunch through (with numerically weighted evaluations) a hierarchy of neat heuristics, so you can read off your correct Ethical Decision at the end. Why, it would be ideal as a mobile phone app, wouldn’t it? Wherever you go, whatever you do, you never need worry about making an ethically bad decision. Cool!

We only need to express such an idea, of course, to be aware of its limitations. We feel uneasy and dissatisfied at the thought of abdicating moral responsibility to a machine, no matter how perfectly rational its decisions might be and however much choice we were offered initially by the app to key in our personal values. It reminds us that we wish to weigh our own ethical feelings internally, subjectively, for each decision, even if it might mean some loss of rationality.

This gives us a clue, I suggest, as to why we need, and will continue to need, more ethical perspectives than just that of consequentialist computation. The three key perspectives (individual, social, total) are different, and differently valid. None can be dispensed with and none is wrong, even though they may be incompatible to a significant degree.

This last point is often demonstrated at undergraduate level in lectures on the classic weakness of utilitarianism, namely that there are circumstances (many powerful examples can be given) in which the greatest aggregate good may be achieved only at enormous (and obviously unjust) expense to a particular individual, or perhaps to a minority (by language, religion, age, etc). The answer to this, many would say, is that in general one might aim (via government policy, say) to maximize the public good (i.e. maximize the pleasure, or at least the “welfare”, of the people in general and minimize suffering and harm), but make sure that this policy is underpinned by human rights law (rights being the other side of the coin to duties), so that no individuals or groups suffer injustice for the sake of the majority.

You might say your proposed system of sophisticated heuristics gets around this problem, bringing (important and necessary) rights in by the back door, so to speak, rather than relying on a creaking, antiquated rule-based deontology which foregrounds rights/duties while neglecting (through failure to analyse and quantify) what would be the best (= highest total welfare) thing to do in terms of total consequences.

I would respond by saying, yes, I like the sound of intelligent heuristics. However, can we really say that the weakness of deontology as you formulate it (commitment to out-of-date rules) is an intrinsic one? Kant’s focus is mainly on duties, or at least that is what comes to us from the most often quoted aspects of his work; and some of it may now seem tied to out-of-date rules derived from consideration of duties and responsibilities. But there is nothing eternal about the particular rules in question. Deontology has moved on since Kant’s day: “human rights” as presently conceived, are underpinned by conceptions of rights and duties Kant would have recognised, but the emphasis has shifted; particular deontological rules can change just as your consequentialist heuristics can. You say there is a “deontological trap of letting rules get detached from their causes (eg: continuing to enforce chastity after the invention of contraception).” But it is surely not a deontological trap per se. The trap in your example is better characterised as one of dogmatic religion. Deontology is in essence a relatively abstract conceptual framework of ethics rather than a commitment to particularities such as chastity.

You say consequentialism is strong, or potentially so, but this strength can only be realised by getting around (and I am not convinced your ideas achieve this) the really crude and awful injustices for which consequentialism is clearly responsible both in theory (as imagined in textbook thought experiments) and in practice. Stalin, for instance, claimed that the ends (a communist society) justified the means, when by “the means” he meant the deaths of millions. This was a consequentialist calculation. It was a direct repudiation of Kantian (deontological) thinking and is also a classic example of why we need deontology (or that part of it which has been developed into “human rights”).

I think the above more or less addresses what you wanted me to. The language is a bit clumsy in places but (sorry, no time for refinement) but I guess you will be able to make sense of it.

I was joking about it being platitudinous. The criticism was primarily aimed at philosophy professors who try to sound Deeply Wise by smiling condescendingly at each side. I suspected you had good reasons for what you said.

I have slight issues with your characterisations of the various ethical systems. Here is how I’d describe them:

Virtue Ethics: Perfecting oneself by becoming a Good Person as determined by your position in society. (Aristotle)
Deontology: Being good by following universally applicable rules and imperatives. Religious commandments do qualify. (Kant)
Social Contract Theory: The system of duties and obligations members of a society have to each other based on their relative position/power. (Hobbes)
Consequentialism: Acting in such a manner as to make the world a better place, dependent on how one defines ‘better’. (Bentham)

Consequentialism does not necessitate quantification or objectivity – though that would be great. All it requires is that your morality be dependent on the state of the real world. I think many people conflate Utilitarianism (which is specific and kind of awesome) with Consequentialism (which is very broad but also frickin’ obvious). A robot whose goal is to make the greatest possible number of paper clips is a Consequentialist simply because it cares about the world around it.

When I read your description of the app my thoughts were, in order: “this is amazing” and “this is computationally intractable”. At no point did I find this to be “bad”. Then I read your denunciation of the idea and realised that my response was atypical. I’ll chalk it up to either my autism or Transhumanism.

In terms of the distinction between individual, social and total I’ll agree they’re all important but I wouldn’t call all of them “good”. I care about my own well being and sometimes make choices that benefit myself when I could be helping others. (eg: not donating every cent I own to the most effective charity.) However, I wouldn’t conceptualise this activity as particularly “good”. Likewise, I help my fiends in cases where I could be helping the poor and this isn’t especially “good”.

However, I don’t have a problem with this. I try to be good where possible but this is one of many goals. I think a lot of people get scared away from Utilitarianism because they think it sets the bar for being a good person too high. In fact, personal goodness is a feature of Virtue Ethics. If you were to ask me “is X a good person?” I’d probably respond with “{TYPE ERROR}”. It is strictly better to do things that are more good than to do things that are less good but that doesn’t mean you have to stop caring about your family or hobbies or anything else you value.

I’ve read some of Kant’s (famously impenetrable) work and his focus isn’t duties. It’s the same universal rules I mentioned earlier, framed as Categorical Imperatives.

You claim that Intelligent Heuristics are insufficient as human rights but Deontological rules are fine. I have to ask: where do these Deontological rules come from? Do we roll dice? Did some ancient Deontologist flip a coin called “murder” with one side labeled “Good” and the other labeled “Bad”? Did The Angels of The Lord descend from On High with great Praise and Jubilation to reveal His Law? Or maybe Deontological High Command sends a scout ship to periodically investigate the infallible Morality Tablet at the centre of the galaxy?

The simple truth is that all Deontological rules are heuristics based on consequences. No one flipped a murder coin – murder is bad because we don’t want people to die. Simply eyeballing Deontology makes it abundantly clear that their rules are Consequentialist in nature – they’re simply framed as immutable and perfect such that following the rules becomes detached from the goal of making the world a better place. It’s like learning to ace an exam that’s designed to test your knowledge instead of acquiring that knowledge in the first place.

Yet Deontological philosophers try so hard to prove that No Seriously Guys We’re Not Consequentialists. As a result they come up with ridiculous justifications that sound like the madness of dreaming Cthulhu. For example, Francis Kamm says that in the case of the trolley problem it’s better for five people to die than one person because to cause the reverse would mean disregarding their dignity. She said the five people are “better dead and inviolable than alive and violable”. This should immediately remind you of parents who would rather their children be killed than touched “inappropriately” for the sake of their “innocence” – which matters more than their lives.

Any right has to be based on an assumption of whether that right makes people better off. The only alternative is to roll some fucking dice! Also, the “Deontological trap” is intrinsic because the entire philosophy is phrased such that the rules themselves are morality. You can’t change a rule because the rule is “good” by definition. The only way people escape bad rules is by throwing up their hands and disregard a particular command. Everyone says God’s rules are eternal but no one in their right mind stones rape victims.

Maybe Stalin’s actions could be framed as a form of “Act Consequentialism”. However, any Rule or Precedent Utilitarian would have told Stalin: “You want to achieve Utopia by killing millions? I’m sorry but we’ve seen people commit genocides and they’ve always been a bad idea. Therefor, we can’t let you do this. I know you think it’s a great idea but frankly: we don’t trust you.” To claim that there is no Consequentialist objection to genocide is to claim that genocide never has bad consequences like, say, millions of deaths.

I’d like to hear what the specific academic problems you’re referring to are. I have some guesses but I’d prefer to hear them directly. If they’re well known you could just list them without description – I’ll probably recognise them.

Thank you, James, lots to ponder here. Actually, I think it might be an idea at this point to see if we can arouse Stephen6000 from his slumbers. He is pretty hot on Kant and I think he would be able to critique your observations on Kant/deontology rather more efficiently and accurately than I can. Stephen, are you there?

Never seen Stephen6000 before. I had no idea there were so many philosophically minded people here. This is going to be fun. 🙂

Also, I may have been unfair to Kant. He does a much better job of decoupling his categorical imperatives from Consequentialist considerations than most Deontological philosophers. However, his Universalisation Test is still grounded in (counterfactual) consequences.

If you’d like to see some fun and engaging critiques of various moral systems (including Utilitarianism) I recommend the game Socrates Jones: Pro Philosopher.

Broadly consequentialist, though I’m sceptical about pure utilitarianism’s commitment to the well-being of all sentient beings generally. I think there are reasons in the philosophy of mind for thinking this problematic.

I was using ‘personhood’ to refer to things like consciousness/qualia, self-awareness, cross-domain problem solving, etc. – not the ability to feel. Chimps fulfill these requirements to some extent – horses, not really.

Fine, but in ethical terms I am not clear as to why feeling alone — or more specifically feeling pain, especially intense pain and distress — is not a sufficient criterion for admission to personhood. Problem-solving abilities etc are irrelevant are regards the universal community and brotherhood of suffering. We (horses etc) are all stakeholders in the ethical ordering of the world.

In the event that a child is raped by an adult, it is very likely that they would be unable to successfully initiate legal action without the help of an AoC or similar rule. This is primarily due to things relating to the existing culture and maybe in a (counterfactual) world where adults got their shit together this wouldn’t be true. However, I think some of the problems are hard coded and I’ve resigned myself to the fact that We Can’t Have Nice Things. (I’m an adultophile so I’m one of the people who are Nice Things Deficient.) Anyway, let’s refer to the number of such children as ‘X’. We can also represent their total harm/pain as ‘H(X)’.

On the other hand, a child may have sex that is consensual and enjoyable. Again, that number is currently influenced by prevailing trends. Let’s call this set of kids ‘Y’. We can now represent their total pleasure/enjoyment as ‘P(Y)’.

As age increases, the likelihood that an individual will want and enjoy sex increases. (You may want to argue this point…) At the same time, the likelihood that they can stop (or press charges against) assault increases. (This seems to be more obvious.) Thus, as a cohort becomes older, the ratio of P(Y) : H(X) goes up.

I believe the perfect place to put the AoC is the age for which P(Y) >= H(X). I think people could agree that the point where the lines on the graph cross is a good Schelling Point. Since pleasure is good and pain is bad, any intervention that boosts P(Y) or reduces H(X) is good. This would, coincidentally, lower the necessary AoC.

However, barring some highly unethical randomised trials, we’re unlikely to ever have a good idea of what works. On the other hand, we could use a combination of surveys and some clever statistical methods to get pretty damn close.

I just noticed that I may have been basing that on how the AoC works in my country. Here it’s kind of a difference in depth. If a child (or parent) accuses someone of rape the suspect is booked with two charges: rape and statutory rape. If the prosecution can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that there was coercion they can convict on rape and put the accused away for about a decade. However, for a variety of legal and cultural reasons, they hardly ever get convictions on rape (even when it’s obvious) so they fall back to statutory rape on which they might be able to squeeze out a year – maybe two if they’re lucky. There is no sex-offender registry so when you’re out you go back to doing whatever you used to do. You were a teacher? Whatevs.

I now see how provincial that is since I’m pretty sure the law in developed countries doesn’t work that way. 🙂

Do you see the problem with that? It ignores when there was consent, which undoubtedly happens a lot. It forces a crime and creates a victim where neither existed. Rape and assault laws are more than enough. As Kinsey said, the age of consent is just meant to enforce social norms, not protect victims.

The AoC which currently exists is certainly based on social norms. I never said my country’s AoC was perfect – or even good. On the other hand:

Imagine that at age ‘X’ (9? 2? who knows!) two thirds of sexual relationships are abusive. In most cases the abuser’s victim/target does not feel like they can/should accuse their abuser of rape. (docile battered women are surprisingly common)

Should the State step in to prevent this at the expense of the happy third? Or should the unhappy two thirds be left to their fate? (Pretend for a moment that you aren’t an Anarchist)

I’d rather 100 guilty go free than jail one innocent. A statist said a similar quote. Those numbers would never be that high anyway. Regardless the child, unlike a battered women, is under the care of parents/guardians who can seek justice on their behalf. Like with anything else.

I do hope you aren’t taking that quote literally. One has to make trade-offs. If wrongful conviction was infinitely unacceptable there would be no justice because there is always a chance you’ll get it wrong. The point is to reduce that chance to the greatest possible extent.

You’re OK with the parent initiating legal action on behalf of the child? Even I find that problematic, and I’m the one arguing for an AoC!

By ameliorating pain and suffering to the greatest extent possible. For example: I believe prisons should be primarily concerned with reforming/assisting prisoners – certainly not ‘punishment’. That is my general view of criminal justice.

We can’t abolish a law completely on the basis that some people might benefit in cases where most would not – the same way we don’t decriminalise theft because some poor people need money. However, the state can and should try to ameliorate any resulting problems. In the cases of theft – the state (and only the state) is permitted to steal a fixed amount of money from the rich to give to the poor (welfare & progressive taxation). I think that’s generally a good strategy.

Adding more nuances and strategies to the mix might also help. For example: some of PIE’s AoC proposals looked like a pretty good idea and could probably provide a buffer of safety allowing the AoC to go even lower than it otherwise might.

Theft is theft. Stealing to help someone or yourself is still a crime with a victim. A consensual experience has no victim. Once again, we should not be jailing (or rehabilitating) innocents because of a few (yes a minority) of abusers.

The above was addressed to a fellow Statist so I wouldn’t expect the theft analogy to hold truck with you. The crux of the issue is distinguishing between consensual and non-consensual relationships from the outside!

I think the rub there is to actually listen to what the youth in the situation has to say about the relationship. The system can conduct a thorough but reasonable investigation if there is good reason to believe the youth may be lying in either direction for any possible reason. A law that always assumes guilt just to make sure all guilty parties get convicted is not benefiting the majority, but is willfully indicting the innocent by using the dreaded “erring on the side of caution” rationalization.

The best way to defeat your opposition is to silence them. Doing so under the guise of “protecting children” works incredibly well. It was done to the homosexuals, now it is done to us. You see we are correct, we have logic, reason, science, biology, and psychology on our side. If child porn were legal, researchers could see for themselves first hand how children may react to sexual activity in different situations. I have never viewed such material but various people, pedosexuals or not, that have commented on the lack of abuse in child porn and presence of happy children having fun.

As for Robin Sharpe, I wish him the best and commend his success (compared to what we normally experience) in the justice system.

Firstly, psychologists studying CP would not, by itself, prove anything about the median response to sexual activity – or even the range of variation for sexual response. It would be a collection of highly edited and self-selected anecdotes. Not useless but also not statistically powerful and definitely confounded to hell and back.

Secondly, while I’ve not viewed any CP, I’m aware that something called ‘hurtcore’ exists and even if it isn’t a representative sample it certainly doesn’t mesh with “the lack of abuse in child porn and presence of happy children having fun”. If the idea of hurtcore being used as an unrepresentative sample of CP upsets you then you should understand why psychologists would be wary of CP as an unrepresentative sample of inter-generational sex.

It would be much better than what we have now. I did not say it was perfect. Only that it would be useful. It would literally be the only way a researcher could view such activity. Also much more useful than what studies are based off of now.

Yes, hurtcore exists, but as far as I have been told it is actually very rare. Psychologists currently have no issues with the current shoddy representations of inter-generational sex. Actual depictions of it would be more useful.

Oh I completely agree. I just meant in light of what is used as “research” these days, viewing CP would be superior. I suppose if CP became legal to possess/view then the hysteria that prevents such research would likely be gone.

For possession – yeah, I suppose. My issue is with production/distribution. Production because I’m pro-(reduced)AoC. Distribution for the same reason I’m in favour of criminalising revenge porn – distributing it without consent is a clear violation of privacy and should be subject to fines (though not jail time). Even if a four year old appears to be enjoying sex in a given instance of CP, I find it quite doubtful that they were consulted on whether they’d like pictures/videos distributed over eDonkey.

I do agree with your points on production and distribution. If we are talking about the originator. Including adult revenge porn. However if a third party downloads it and sends it to a buddy then I don’t think that should be illegal. I am pro abolishing the AOC but even then production and distribution of CP is something that would be highly regulated either by government or in stateless society by child advocacy institutions/insurance companies. Regardless I agree that in the CP I have heard that the child is having fun and consenting, I doubt they are made aware that their moments are being shared with the world and I have SERIOUS issues with that. Anyway our posts have now reached super skinny levels. This will be my last response. We seem to largely agree anyway. Until next time James!

Ey James new thread. Anyway, school in it’s current form is awful and, to me, merely an indoctrination camp. I look at it like this. Over zealous rights groups effectively banned children from work, they needed to keep kids off the streets, but they still needed the kids for factories and rote jobs when they got older, so they modeled school’s after the Prussian model where obedience to authority was a major point. Schools can be good, but they need to be rebuilt from the ground up and reflect democratic education models and be much less age segregated and less authoritarian. As for me, my kids will be homeschooled. Unless they ask to go to school, there is no way in hell I am sending them to school. I am a huge fan of unschooling model of homeschooling.

As for my young friends and youth rights. Well whether it be babysitting or tutoring. Regardless to me it is just hanging out. Cause they are either a friend to me or romantic partner depending on how they feel. Usually their parents are not supportive of youth rights at all. So I will make them feel independent and empowered, and that will be for only a handful of times a month. Every other day they are brought down by their parents mentalities or teachers. My first little girl friend, she isn’t particularly active in any orgs. It’s just that her mentality is freedom oriented and that includes youth. Which is in stark contrast to the other adults around her. We always have discussions about it. Her teacher used those “brain scan studies” to try and bring down the class, and I showed her how her teacher is an idiot and the flaws of those studies. Not that they are wrong per say but most adults come to the wrong conclusions about them. They don’t understand it.

Read this piece by the great Dr. Epstein as a counter:http://www.drrobertepstein.com/ pdf/ Epstein-THE_MYTH_OF_THE_TEEN_BRAIN-Scientific_American_Mind-4-07.pdf

What most typical adults do is read the articles about the brain scans and just run with it. So happy to express why adults have better brains than teens and children and that teens just can’t handle responsibility because their brain is not fully formed.

Multiple problems.

One, people forget that when a part of the brain is not used, it does not develop like it should. Most children and teens are not allowed much choice in their life. Decisions are made for them, mistakes are mitigated for them, etc. The frontal lobe helps with reasonable decision making but adults intentionally keep children and teens from exercising that part of the brain thus slowing its development.

Two, as Epstein pointed out cultural differences explain how teens in cultures that allot them more responsibility and freedom are more on par with adults in societies like those in America, where children and teens are treated like glorified toddlers. This relates back to number one. Lack of use slows and stunts development.

Three, adults assume that they just automatically make better decisions when this is clearly demonstrably false. Adults also assume their brains are better, but they forget that teens and children are more open to new ideas while adults are more rigid in their thinking. Which can be both good and bad. For us, kids are more likely to understand the pedosexual point of view since they are open to more ideas and different views. Adults are harder to move.

My first little girlfriend’s teacher was in a debate with a student about being allowed freedom and choice. The teacher pulled the article up about the brain scans. She concluded that teens needed adults to tell them what to do because their brain just naturally couldn’t handle it. I wish I was there when she said that.

Smoking and drinking are good examples. Many adults smoke and get drunk even though they know that it is dangerous, and this shows that the reason why adults (as opposed to children and teens) are allowed to do so, is not that they are capable of making better decisions, but merely an issue of power.

I’m amazed at how they skipped all the other conclusions that could be drawn from this data.

For example: white matter is central to our ability to lie. Pathological Liars have huge surpluses of the stuff. As anyone who’s interacted with teenagers can tell you, we have no problems lying, so clearly the white matter deficiency isn’t a big deal. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if the extra white matter adults have allows them to lie to themselves more effectively – as they do now by rationalising this study.

There is also the fact that they demonstrated on a graph that the amount of white matter in the brain in one’s teens is about the same as in one’s sixties. The average age on the US Supreme Court is 67. If they really practised what they preached, they’d sack the whole court due to their inability to make grown up decisions. Might have averted the Hobby Lobby BS…

Further more, due to neurological decay, the quality of the white matter connections deteriorates. These decayed connections mean signals take longer to travel between different parts of the brain. By rights, forty year olds should be screaming toddlers playing in traffic.

In conclusion: the brain is complicated and parents should be kept away from information on neuroscience for their own protection.

My view of the whole child labour issue is that the situation is better post-criminalisation than pre-criminalisation but they could have done much better by instead extending unionisation rights and safety regulations to minors while getting their parents out of their pocket-books.

The whole school thing looks a bit like a prison to me. The kids are dropped off, separated into cell blocks grades and put under the absolute authority of the wardens teachers. During this time the teachers fling facts at the students and hope something sticks. I understand why most parents would need a place to put their kids when they go to work but this model is ridiculous! *sigh* I wish I could go to a Sudbury School.

Do your friends hang out with each other when you’re not around? The whole YR thing might stick better if their beliefs were associated with a community. Everyone knows that Christians come for the Gospel but they stay for the Church.

“her mentality is freedom oriented”
What are her politics? Is she Libertarian/Voluntarist like you? Does she have a blog/website?

Ah, yes. The your-brain-stops-developing-at-25 stuff. I’m always surprised to find that people say, “and therefor adult judgement is the best” instead of “and therefor adult judgement is rigidly fixed and incapable of improvement”. I would come to the second conclusion were I not aware of neural plasticity. The whole brain scan thing looks like an anti-adult argument to me!

The situation is definitely better post-criminalization but that is because of the progression capitalism brought us. The laws would have never passed if parents still needed their kids to work for the family to survive. It’s a case of correlation does not equal causation. I do agree that what should have happened was rights and regulations should have extended to minors, instead of just forcing their hands yet again and not allowing freedom.

My little girl friends (and little boys who are my friends) do often hang with each other. I know they sometimes discuss such things when I am not around, how much they do is up to them though.

My first little girlfriend is, sad for me to say, not exactly super intelligent. She doesn’t really know much about politics or philosophies nor would she have any interest in running a blog. I think the frequent beatings took their toll. One of the reasons I became forcefully distanced was because of my increasing vocalization of disagreement with their parenting techniques. It’s hard to see someone you love getting slapped because she uttered a word deemed a “curse word”.

Check out my post to Tom to see my thoughts on those “studies”.

I am polyamorous, since children in general are. However when it comes to a potential wife I can settle for monogamy. At least when it just comes to adult women. I will always have little girl friends and romantic but not sexual relationships. However I will always love my wife. She’d have to be a special woman to agree with my youth rightsy views.

I get your point. I do believe the law had some positive effects but, yet again, it’s difficult to disentangle since everything has been improving since the Industrial Revolution and the data is obviously confounded as hell.

Josie’s video is a tad bit hyperbolic but generally accurate. I’d never heard of her before now.

‘uttered a word deemed a “curse word”.’
Fuck that shit! Language is meant to be used. Language is meant to be abused. Language is slutty like that.

But seriously though – that’s terrible. I know it well because I live in one of those countries where parents have a ‘right’ to beat their children. My parents haven’t done that to me but it’s happened to me in school. Until recently it was socially acceptable for any adult to beat any child around here and it still happens in some rural areas. In my opinion, it’s domestic violence, pure and simple. I think people could get vastly greater marginal returns in child welfare by focusing more on physical than sexual abuse.

There are lots of scientifically validated methods of boosting children’s intelligence and I’ve self-applied quite a few. However, I don’t know if you’re in a position to do much since most involve nutrition or daily habits. Maybe, if you’re a tutor, you could say to the parents “these things will boost her grades”?

If it’s any consolation, parental upbringing has very little effect on children’s long-term life outcomes. This is one of the main reasons I find Rind et al believable – it’s actually surprisingly hard to break children (though neglect is more effective than abuse). You generally have to be trying.

I assume you’d raise Youth Rightsy children too. I imagine it must be difficult to have a relationship with someone you don’t see often. I have a super crush on a woman (late 20s) I work with at my apprenticeship/internship and that alone makes it hard to leave at the end of the day.

If 2nd hand distribution isn’t criminalised, how would one prevent it from spreading? I understand that the first share is where the main problem is and that each additional download has negligible effect on the margin, but without a disincentive for redistribution it could go from a dozen people to a thousand. Such a large difference could cause non-negligible anxiety and psychological harm.

How would government/private regulation work? I’m a bit skeptical because, for the most part, I don’t trust adults to look out for the welfare of kids.

The issue is that we live in a society that demonizes sexual activity, especially for females and gay males. In the end it should be no more psychologically harmful than if someone shares an embarrassing photo on Facebook. It’s simply a victimless crime beyond the original sharer. It’s incredibly subjective too. The logic could apply to any picture shared without consent, not just sexual. I have had friends share photos of me that embarrassed me a lot. What about people whose faces became memes? What if they feel anxiety and psychological problems from the use of their face? Are we too charge everyone who shares those pictures? It doesn’t make much sense.

I don’t know how such regulation would work. I can only make guesses. It would work much like child actors I suppose. First off it would be a small amount of kids statistics wise. In a sexually open society porn would be even less desired since sex would be more easily gotten and available. Also it is my opinion that adult/child sexual contact would only become legal after youth are treated more fairly and equally and with more respect. It will be the youth themselves defending pedosexuals like they often do now, but unlike now their opinion would be taken seriously. Thus it would be even rarer for children to be abused. If child porn were legal it would be easy to police because of the openness of it. Whether through government or not. Most humans are not bad people, given how crime just keeps dropping and how humanity has generally been improving over the centuries. I will not pretend to have the answers.

I don’t think people should post pictures of others without permission in general and I’m pissed off every time I see pictures of myself on my friends’ Facebook walls. However, I do get what you mean about sex-negativity being the main problem. I’m annoyed to no end by people who think Miley Cyrus twerking or Anthony Weiner’s dick pics are the end of the world. The difficulty of enforcement might be an issue but I suppose if leaked CP coexisted with ethical CP most pedos would go for the later and there wouldn’t be much of a problem anyway.

I’m not too fond of the way child actors are treated either. Child labour is extremely problematic since the children hardly ever have economic leverage and their parents manage their finances. We’re not even allowed to assemble freely, much less unionise. I’d hope that a society with more liberty for young people would solve these problems but I’m not sure to what degree. With the exception of niche markets like acting, most of us don’t have all that much economic potential, which makes it that much easier for employers to fuck us – and not always in a metaphorical sense.

I think you might be interested in The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker. It makes the same points about declines in violence and war and describes how we’ve become much better people. It’s really the type of book that makes you love humanity.

Yes I think we can agree on that! One thing I always say is that youth rights will come first before acceptance of minor attracted adults. When youth have more power over their lives and a real ability to defend those they love.

Hey by the way, you don’t have to give me an exact age, but what age range are you in? You’ve mentioned before “when I turn 18”. Don’t worry I am not a boy lover, I won’t hit on you if you have a little sister though……….. haha jk

Probably but the Youth Rights thing seems a bit intractable at the moment. One of the main issues is that most kids aren’t politically motivated or buy into the whole inferiority BS. Most of the kids who do get involved in the movement are either the disgruntled and unhinged types who don’t trust adults as far as they could throw them, or socially awkward autistics like me. Not the best people for winning hearts and minds.

I’m 16 so not even BLs would be into me. Not that I’d mind being hit on – especially by a hot woman in her 20s/30s 🙂
No sister either 😛

Problem is most kids are indoctrinated and treated like they are three until eighteen and then set loose upon the world. They don’t even have the self-efficacy to feel they can have valid opinions on this matters. Openly at least. Youth know I view them no better or worse than any other person. Then it is revealed that even at seven or eight they can have pretty complex and intelligent thoughts on politics and society and are very willing to discuss such topics.

I notice how functioning autistic individuals are pretty anti-authoritarian. You are more likely to think outside the box, not listen to normal social conventions. That’s a good thing. At 16 I was buying into all the bullshit. It took me to my early twenties to even begin questioning things.

I think the school system plays a large part in crushing any feeling of personal potency. I’ve been making a check list of Everything Wrong With School since kindergarten. People are always shocked by how well I do in class despite hating school with a passion.

It’s not always us going against social norms; sometimes we completely fail to notice them. It took me years to realise adults expected to receive more politeness than they gave because the concept of “double standard” failed to compute.

I often talk about it to them about it, and they always take to it well. Problem is most kinda leave it since I don’t get to spend enough time with them as a youth rights influence. Though my first little girl friend is very youth rightsy compared to some of the others.

I’m posting through TOR so my access to certain features is limited, I just realized I had a handful of comments awaiting my moderation! I accepted all of them and have made replies to most. Sorry about that.

I just use it to prevent possible harassment. I have done nothing illegal so I don’t use it for that. I just don’t feel like getting “outted” and then having to defend myself against bigots who might harass my family.

Have you looked into ways to increase your anonymity? There’s a good article here. It doesn’t say so but I think good advice should include “don’t blog drunk” since you might include incriminating details by accident.

One thing to consider about the decriminalization of CP is that the understandable but highly emotional urge to “protect” children can subvert the thinking process of MAPs every bit as much as the typical non-MAP individuals who are influenced by the hysteria. This can easily cause us to overcompensate and leave both common sense and democratic considerations aside when tackling this issue.

For example, supporting the continued criminalization of simple possession when the person has nothing to do with distribution out of concern that the child in question likely wouldn’t want it distributed is ignoring the fact that in an information-based world, there is no reliable or absolute democratic means of preventing the dissemination of such imagery that does not pave the way to the surveillance state, and ultimately, invasive attacks on everyone’s personal data that inevitably gets expanded to use “protecting children” as an excuse to breach people’s privacy in order to detect and stifle all types of political dissent.

The issue of “hurtcore” is too often dealt with in a manner that is so emotionally overwrought it ends up treating this extremely rare phenomenon as if it was an epidemic and emblematic of child/youth erotica in general, much as the extremely rare incidences of stranger abduction against children is incredibly sensationalized – despite how horrific and heartbreaking every one of these rare cases are – and exaggerated to the point that it gets conflated with the very idea of intergenerational sexual contact itself. The result are draconian measures instituted against not only any adult merely suspected of having an attraction to underagers to “protect” kids from mostly non-existent boogeymen while ignoring the far more common threat that often originates right in their own homes, but it also results in the vicious suppression of any instance of youth sexual expression and constant surveillance on any and all of their activities both online and offline to “protect” them from any shadowy menace one can imagine. The end result of all that is the incessant hysteria and witch hunting we’ve had for the past 35 years, and the repression of even many genuinely artistic and educational depictions of youth sexuality, on the grounds that it “incites” strange perverts to assault children. Further, are the rare pics of this “hurcore” genre even authentic, or are they merely acting? This is another important question that needs to be asked, and I think whether these rare pics are even depictions of authentic torture is very relevant. If not, then we are attacking an aspect of imagination that offends us, nothing more, and policies for dealing with that need to be modified accordingly.

Yes, of course I believe that the legal production of youth erotica, if decriminalized, should be regulated. In regards to your statement that you do not trust adults to look after the welfare of children, with the possible implication that this should be used to justify continued criminalization of any type of production with the intention of protecting children, this is how I feel about that:

I think it should be noted that absolute mistrust of any single group of people (adults, in this case), and laws passed to reflect this, always lead to draconian measure and policies that are considerably disproportionate to the degree of legitimate concern and safety measures necessary. It inevitably results in more harm than good in the name of protection. It also plays into the hysterical aspects of the child abuse narrative that CP is primarily produced and controlled by *adults.* It needs to be considered that underagers produce much of this material themselves, and any casual perusal of the type of subtly but undeniably provocative videos they tend to put up on YouTube – via channels they create and control – and the increasing number of underagers who are arrested and cast in the joint role of victim and victimizer due to the “sexting” trend provide strong indications of this. It implies that underagers, including many pubescents, have a natural inclination towards various forms of sexual expression, and due to the current laws and restrictions, they resort to attempts at covert or subtle public means of displaying this expression.

As for concerns about four-year-olds that are inevitably mentioned in these discussions: How much of recorded youth erotica or CP is actually of children that young? If the amount is actually very rare, then we need to consider that mentioning ages that young in these discussions are exaggerations designed to garner a specific type of general emotional reaction towards the issue of CP. Moreover, some people – including some MAPs – do not like the idea of eroticism and pornography in a general sense for various moral reasons, and they naturally extend and expand this disdain when the subject broaches underagers appearing in erotic situations on camera.

Hence, I contend that the best solution to any legitimate concerns need to be democratic in nature, i.e., which balance emotion with reason, and likewise balance concern for the well-being of others with concern for freedom of expression, freedom of speech, and freedom of access to information. We may never be able to achieve perfect security with democratic solutions, but I think what we give up when we go in the opposite direction – no matter how noble the cause – is far worse than the “price” we pay for freedom and democracy.

Thanks, Dissident, for this meaty contribution. I was just about to post a pretty chunky one of my own in response to James (I promised it for this evening) but I now think I should leave it until tomorrow: your big post deserves a bit of breathing space along with the other current replies to James.

Firstly, I do think people make too many decisions based on emotion. My belief is that our emotions should inform our values and what we want the world to be like – but reason should inform our decisions on how to achieve it. If we care about the protection of children we should act to logically maximise safety in a way that doesn’t cause inadvertent harm – not to feel good about how “safe” we’ve made everything by creating little prisons.

Secondly, I was not suggesting we should criminalise possession and I certainly don’t want us to set up a Child Protection Gestapo. Also, in the case of hurtcore, I think it is an issue that needs to be addressed. However, I do believe it is probably small enough that it shouldn’t the #1 priority. Idiots who fail to vaccinate their kids are a far greater threat to children.

Also, if the children in hurtcore are acting then they should take a lesson from some adult BDSM and include an explicit consent statement at the beginning to assuage any fears. In fact – this would probably be a good idea for all CP. I’d like to see antis argue around that!

By the way, when I used a four year old as an example, it was simply a rhetorical technique. I was adding some pathos to my argument’s dry logos. It’s a technique I learned in my school’s debating club. However, I understand your concerns. Framing an abstract concept in a single, non-central example is a powerful tool and in the wrong hands it can be a Dark Art of Rhetoric. A good example of this would be Ronald Reagan’s “Welfare Queen” speech.

Finally, my statement about adults was not meant as a dismissal nor was it meant to signal general distrust. I really do like adults most of the time. I simply meant to invoke the Disability Rights concept of “nothing about us without us”. I meant that we do not require outside “protection” so much as we need the tools to protect ourselves and direct our lives. A labour union by us and for us would be worth a dozen charities run by frightened grandmas.

Thank you for all of these clarifications, James. If I interpreted anything you said incorrectly to a gross extent, then I certainly do apologize. Your comments here tend to be quite thoughtful and inspiring, bar none.

I too would actually like to see such a statement of consent mentioned at the beginning or end of child erotica films, if they were hypothetically decriminalized. Adults already do this when they make legal bogus rape films, where it’s all acting, to make it clear that the scenarios depicted were actually fully consensual. They also tack on blooper reels that occurred during filming, where the thespian ‘victims’ and ‘victimizers’ can be seen laughing together at each others’ errors, to make it more clear that there was nothing abusive about the film environment in actuality, regardless of what one may have seen the actors portray onscreen. Of course, films that are not made for public consumption, which are required to go “underground” or created entirely for private use, will obviously not bother to make those disclaimer statements. That would be another benefit of legalization, of course… to get that official “stamp” of consent.

I believe there are always rational and democratic ways of dealing with any perceived problem, and that’s why we need to keep our emotions in check when dealing with particularly “hot button” topics. I fully understand that the urge to protect children is a very strong impulse in the human species, and that is generally a good thing… until it’s taken too far and the Dark Side of the protection urge is allowed to take over, which is also used as a weapon to get all types of marginally related or fully unrelated types of draconian legislation passed. Protecting any vulnerable group of people must never been seen or claimed to be mutually exclusive with protecting freedom and democracy.

I went and looked into the whole ‘intelligence boosting’ thing. This is the result of me brainstorming all possible methods of optimising her character build. I am not a doctor, teacher or neuroscientist – I’m just a guy who’s read a lot of research.

Don’t feel like you have to do all of this. Particularly: don’t push her to do anything she doesn’t want to. Resentment ruins almost all the positive effects, plus coercion is Not Cool. For nutrition: where possible use diet over supplements.

I’ll try to focus on Cognition (including IQ), Mental Health and Memory. I’ll also be aiming at uncommon recommendations so I don’t just rehash what you already know. Where possible I’ll including citations. Anywhere that I fail to include citations you should assume I have a reason for saying what I’m saying but have forgotten the source.

Nutrition
Most people should increase Potassium intake to 4.7g or more for several health reasons including cognition. Iodine intake should be increased if you suspect a deficiency and you’re unlikely to overdose (deficiency can drop you 15 IQ points!) Lithium is a great one which improves intelligence, decreases likelihood of mental illness and may even reduce aggression but few people take supplements and most people could stand to have more. Also: where possible, she should drink water instead of juice or soda. I drink non-water beverages about once a week but you don’t have to go that far.

Behaviour
The number one recommendation is to brighten her life – with literal light. On the mental health side: long-term exposure to bright light decreases the symptoms of depression about as effectively as some anti-depressants. Even in people without depression it increases general happiness, improves sleep and even promotes better social interaction. On the cognitive side: Students who take tests it better lighting have much better results. (high certainty)

Being in nature a lot obviously follows from this (natural light is superior to artificial light) but there are other benefits specific to spending time outside. It increases mental functioning, concentration and impulse control. Of course, you don’t need to paint rivers and get mauled by bears for this to work. Just spend a few hours in the park each week.

Yoga decreases stress while increasing concentration, self confidence and blood flow to the brain. You might want to look into that.

This is going to sound a bit Virtue Ethicsy, but you should try to make sure she cultivates a self-concept of being smart. People change their behaviour (and even their brains) based on what role they believe they occupy. If she views intelligence as a virtue worth cultivating (and has that as part of her self-image), she’ll probably become more intelligent over time. There’s a study I can no longer find where a class was split up and students were assigned to two groups at random. The researchers told the teachers that the members of Group A had higher IQs than the members of Group B. When they came back to test them at the end of the year, the IQs of the members of Group A had shot up significantly.

Another important thing to note is that (for neurotypicals) parental upbringing counts for far less than peer socialisation. (Though parental genes count for even more….) If you can get her involved in peer groups that include lots of smart kids, that could be super effective! The value of Chess Club isn’t playing chess, it’s socialising with the type of people who play chess!

Speaking of hanging out with nerds, she might be interested in RPGs. Role Play Games vastly improve strategic thinking, coordination and diplomacy. If there are no D&D nerds where you live, she could try an MMORPG. I’ve played several and I certainly believe they’re a good value (but don’t pay for them if you don’t have to).

Another important one that many people over look is reading. Reading anythingimproves Verbal Intelligence.Anything at all. Don’t be constrained by trying to make her read “smart” books. I asked my mom what you should offer to teens who don’t read and she said (this is a direct quote): “horror and sex”. I’ve already recommended a book above. If my high school experiences are any indication, teenage girls love vampires.

Writing also has similar effects. Yet again, it doesn’t matter what she writes about – sports, fashion, pirates, travel, etc – as long as she writes (and writes frequently) Verbal Intelligence should spike. (You didn’t think I was writing this post out of altruism did you? 🙂 ) It’s also important to note that it has to be self directed and creative – if she’s copying notes in school, it wont help. (This is where that blog comes in handy…)

Math practice is also important. However, you have to be strategic about how you practise. Doing 3 simple problems a day (eg: multiplication of two single digit integers) is better than doing one hard problem a week (eg: differential calculus). Frequent use of math (even in small quantities) causes neurological changes to facilitate it. It also increases general processing speed for all calculations and logic. Further more, it will help her cultivate her self-concept as Someone Who’s Good At Math. You should also she if you can get her interested in programming. I can attest that it’s the number one way to improve logical and procedural thinking.

For spacial intelligence you should try solving lots of puzzles with her. Jigsaw, Rubix Cube, etc. Mazes are also good -both on paper and the (much cooler) life-sized mazes. Also, if you ever go traveling or hiking, you should give her the map so she can give directions.

For memory training you might want to try Spaced Repetition. However, the case is not conclusive. she should use it it should be for individual fact – capitals, dates, names – not general concepts. Another good technique is the Memory Palace

The children starving on the mountain top in Iraq are starving because of religious books. The same for the slaughtered children in Gaza which is really strange because Israel is a secular state but one of chosen people.
Linca

I’m not so sure about “wrong” since I don’t believe any book should ever be banned – ever. Even if the sole contents are “find someone nobody will miss and torture them” I still don’t think it should be banned. The onus is always on the person who acts – not the author and certainly not the book. Banning a book is like littering – there is no legitimate reason you could have for doing it besides being a prick.

As for banned book week – as far as I know the government in my country never bans/censors books. It’s not that they’re particularly moral – they just can’t be bothered. Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure we only just recently made kiddie porn illegal…

>The onus is always on the person who acts – not the author and certainly not the book.

But any responsible author or publisher, especially those who adopt a consequentialist philosophy, will find themselves pondering the likely consequences of publication, and that includes motivating others to do harmful things. Having taken these likely, or possible, consequences into account, writers/publishers may feel obliged to self-censor. Would they be wrong to do so? Also, what if you are a consequentialist legislator? Faced with a proposal in your parliament to ban books that advocate “find someone nobody will miss and torture them” (let’s suppose there has been a recent rash of such books and people have indeed gone out and tortured), won’t you have to ask yourself about the possible consequences of failing to support the proposed censorship?

Excellent questions! The Act Utilitarian response would be “yes, censor bad books.” However, for Rule and Precedent Utilitarians (AKA: people like me) the answer is “it’s a definite maybe.”

Act Utilitarianism is a bit like Neoclassical Economics – most of it’s models assume that all agents have perfect information about the consequences of all their actions. However, that’s not how life works. Every action has first order effects, second order effects, and so on. It’s impossible to predict every consequence in detail. As such, it’s only reasonable for human beings to govern their actions accord to simple rules which are proven to have good, long-term effects most of the time.

In it’s simplest form, this is Rule Utilitarianism. This is the belief that you should adopt the best rules of thumb (heuristics) and follow them where possible. When you find a better heuristic (defined as one that produces better results when followed consistently), you switch to the new rule. This avoids the deontological trap of letting rules get detached from their causes (eg: continuing to enforce chastity after the invention of contraception).

One rule which has proven to work in the vast majority of cases is freedom of speech. Allowing people to say what they want without punishing those words almost always leads to better real world outcomes. However, under Rule Utilitarianism a rule can be replaced or edited to make it more nuanced and effective. We’ve already carved out these nuances to protect privacy and prevent libel, why not ban torture books? In a case like this a Rule Utilitarian might say “it is with a heavy heart and great trepidation that I declare this book illegal.”

However, I’m a Precedent Utilitarian and that throws up even more complexity. Precedent Utilitarianism is a bit like Rule Utilitarianism + Game Theory. Precedent Utilitarianism requires that you model how the implementation of your rule will affect other people – whether or not those people are consequentialists. In this case a rule is both a heuristic and a Schelling point – a thing that lots of people can agree on. It’s important that a Schelling point be simple enough that people don’t have to argue over it and obvious enough that others will come to it on their own.

When figuring out which books to ban a Precedent Utilitarian must ask what rule everyone else can agree on. If torture books increase violence there must be evidence for that so you could just say “you need evidence!” This is deceptively simple because it doesn’t ask how much evidence. Do you need a one off Social Psychology experiment with p<0.05? Naive Social Psychology is difficult to use appropriately. Do you up the rigor and require an entire Meta-Analysis. This is extremely expensive and Can still be wrong. You could just keep boosting the rigor to arbitrary heights but at some point your legislature is going to realize they aren’t banning anything.

For these reasons and more, I strongly believe the only good Schelling point (and, thus, the only good rule) is don’t ban any books. Worse yet the people who do ban books don’t put half this much thought into the matter and usually aren’t even Consiquentialists. Ergo, I don’t trust them.

TL;DR – Censorship’s bad, M’Kay? More seriously: societies with censorship will almost always be worse than societies without it.

Thank you! Told you consequentialism kicked arse! This is basically the way I go about defining human rights – is this right a good rule of thumb for letting people live a good life?

BTW: would you believe I used to think Philosophy was boring? I recently realised that my problem wasn’t that it was too boring – the problem was that it was too easy! Now when I end up on sites with lots of obviously smart people (like this one) I’m desperate to find someone to argue with.

I wrote about this in another comment I can no longer find. I’m out right now but when I get home I’ll write a proper response.

ottoAug 09, 2014 @ 01:34:37

Forbidding the public, and, increasingly, private expression, of any idea that does not conform to the party line should certainly be seen for what it is. Seen – and shouted from the rooftops. It is seemingly only the deviants who have even begun to realise how pervasive this censorship is becoming and is, simply, going to be. As in the iconic dystopian novels the great unwashed, skilfully manipulated by sinister government and cynical business interests, are welcoming these developments with open arms. This is because they are sold to us and implemented on our behalves in the now oft-linked name of our protection from terrorists and our children’s protection from the grotesque and monstrous paedophile menace. Intelligent, liberal, THINKING people are being taken in by this nonsense. The paedophiles, of course, cannot respond, and neither can their friends or allies for realistic fear of being tainted, exposed and ridiculed – or worse beaten up, imprisoned or murdered.

It is only the odd lone voice, such as yours, that is out there plugging away on ALL our behalves, that keeps a sliver of light visible in dark times.

As individuals we have constantly to monitor the balance of what we have personally to lose by speaking out – or rather, these days, attempting to speak out – and what we all as an increasingly global society have to lose… if we haven’t yet lost it entirely.

James,
Asking for the rights of children to vote is not as farfetched as it might seem. The US has a long history of granting voting rights to those it thought inferior:

1. In 1856 North Carolina became the last state to remove property ownership as a requirement to vote,
2. In 1870 The 15th Amendment Granted African American Men the Right to Vote,
3. In 1920 the 19th Amendment granted Women the Right to Vote,
4. The Voting Rights Act passed in 1965,
5. The 26th Amendment lowered the voting age to 18 in 1971,
6. In 2002 The Help America Vote Act to among other things require disability access.
7. At this time there is a movement to empower the mentally disabled with the right to vote. It is called “The Empowerment Project.

It is on pages 54 and 55 of “The Gay Militants” by Donn Teal (1971) Stein and Day Publishers/New York. All of us here on H-TOC should have a copy of this book. The 7th Demand in their Manifesto will blow you away. It sure did me. But, remember these kids came almost straight from the barricades of Stonewall. They lived on and had sex on the streets of NYC: Christopher Street.

I find it interesting that they thought they should join forces with “the feminists”. Guess they had no idea “the feminists” would turn so radically against them, even using the argument that their frontal lobes are not developed so therefore they cannot think straight. These kids have probably turned radically against themselves or at the very least doubted themselves. But some are probably as radical as they were then. I know a couple via WBAI in NYC and they are as radical as they were then.

The overwhelming majority of sex offenders in prison accept Jesus and turn against who they naturally are. I had an Officer in the Alaska Prison System tell me that a couple of years ago. And, have experienced something like that myself with members of RSOL (Reform Sex Offender Law) who have accepted the good graces of The Therapists who are teaching us how to get along in the world we live in. These kids at that time (1969) rightfully said, “Fu*k this world we live in, we need a new world.” I think that is what you are saying. That is what I am saying for sure.

James get out there an work for voting rights for children. The Catholic Church gives us a good guide as to what age. A child reaches the age of reason at 7-years-old. That has been for a thousand years plus I think; maybe some religious scholar here on H-TOC can correct me.

I’m aware that the US (and most other countries) extended rights piecemeal. That’s actually been something I’ve pointed out a lot in argument – comparing the Youth Rights Movement to the Suffragettes. Also, I hope felons get the vote soon – it might help stem Mass Incarceration.

Item 7 was a bit surprising. 9 was funny in a “fuck yeah!” kind of way.

…Would this be a bad time to mention that I’m a Feminist? Besides, the oppression of young people is not specifically Feminist and lots of people use that stupid frontal lobe argument. Also, it shouldn’t be too surprising that a lot of the feminist movement would be anti-youth – usually when an oppressed group pulls itself up, its first act is to shit on everyone it thinks is below it. Ever noticed how it’s never the most popular kids in school who are the bullies – it’s the people right below them? The Jews in Palestine are also a good example.

Accept Jesus and then rewrite your sexual orientation? Good luck with that. Maybe if you let Jesus come inside you you’ll never want human sex again?
(BTW: You were in prison? What for?)

Yes, I’m saying “fuck it” though I’m not sure if I’m saying it for the same reasons or with the same goals in mind…

I’m kind of skeptical of the whole ‘age of reason’ thing. I also wouldn’t accept anything on the basis that a religion has supported it for a long time – slavery, anyone?

As far I can tell, reasoning ability, like most abilities, develops continuously and at different rates for different people. Trying to pin down a universal age would be a very difficult and trade-off reliant at best and detrimental at worst.

For something like voting, I wouldn’t want any age limit. This might cause weird effects in a representative democracy but I don’t think it would be anything seriously problematic. On the other hand, I’m a Futarchist and under Futarchy this wouldn’t be a problem at all….

James,
Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism) leave me cold. Bentham used his philosophy to justify usury and disparage Aristotle. John Stuart Mill incorrectly believed the cost of production determined the value of gold conveniently obscuring the centuries old scams of gold traders of Europe taking advantage of the peoples of the East making themselves wealthy out of nothing. Bentham supported pedophilia so I am not completely cold on him but almost.

I have to depend on others to tell me what goes on in prison. But, the way we are sinking into the abyss that probably will not last. The black hole is sucking. Your feminist associates are right there sucking. So, they have done some good things. Not enough to balance out the genocide of us pedosexuals. Run as fast as you can away from them. They split the gay community and have us devouring each other.

Pay a lot more attention to history, i.e., what has actually happened than philosophy.
Linca

My appreciation of a particular philosophy has nothing to do with whether I like the people who developed it. I was quite outraged when I discovered J S Mill supported the oppression of “primitive” societies (which seems awfully non-Utilitarian to me). However, to engage with your specific critiques:

Firstly, I’m not anti-usury in the sense that I’m not anti-credit. I like the fact that a private sector exists and large-scale enterprise beyond the domain of the state is pretty much impossible without a market for credit.

Secondly, I’m inclined to be critical of Aristotle. After all: he believed some races were naturally inclined to being slaves, women weren’t properly people, contemplativeness was caused by cooling of the blood, empirical facts can and should be determined a priori, et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseam. Though it’s fair to note that I don’t reject Virtue Ethics solely on the basis that it’s founder supported a couple dumb ideas.

Thirdly, the theory of production value is definitely not unique to J S Mill. In fact, Marx uses the exact same example of the cost of producing gold. It really did take a long time for the idea of marginal value to become entrenched. Besides, whether gold traders exploited their clients is an issue to take up with the Capitalists, with whom J S Mill cannot fairly be classed.

“Your feminist associates are right there sucking.”
I don’t know who my “associates” are. Do people automatically get associated with anyone they agree with on a single belief? Does my atheism associate me with Stalin? Does the fact that I believe the sky is blue put me on par with Hitler?

I believe males and females have moral equivalence (there’s that Utilitarianism again…) and should have equivalent rights. This bizarre and contrarian position is called (with scorn!) ‘Feminism’ . This does not mean I necessarily endorse any additional or dependent claim made by any other person or organisation which chooses to self identify as ‘Feminist’. How could I? The lot of them, taken together, endorse a vast number of contradictory positions. My position is not the statistical average of every other ‘Feminist’ position and certainly not a cookie-cutter stereotype of a bra-burning lesbian.

At what point does interest in philosophy funge against interest in history? I do pay attention to history. In fact, I find it hard to understand how one could not be endlessly enthralled by it. However, it’s less fun to argue; the past has already been written. It’s our present values by which we seek to determine the future and this is why I argue for the values I endorse. So I ask you: if you reject Utilitarianism (as you seem to) by what standard do you define your morality? More specifically: from whence cometh good if not from improving the lives of other human beings (and possibly animals)?

I eagerly await your response – or anyone’s for that matter. Hat tip to Tom; I’d like to know how far I’ve come to converting him to The Gospel of Consequentialism 🙂

Hat tip to Tom; I’d like to know how far I’ve come to converting him to The Gospel of Consequentialism

I have a guest at the moment James. We’re just about to disappear to the hills for a day’s hiking. Hope to respond properly tomorrow evening after friend’s departure. Meanwhile, you continue to astonish!

Aristotle came up with the most important definition I can imagine: “Money exists not by nature but by law”. Bentham/Mill didn’t/couldn’t get it. In that book up above you will learn why usury is a crime against man keeping us in slavery. There are other choices, choices that give us all FREEDOM, that redefine reality. You will learn how stuck in the mud your simple defense of usury is and how the bankers so take advantage of that defense. The book is available as a PDF for free online: http://www.conspirazzi.com/e-books/lost-science-of-money.pdf

Take a look at the Index then fast forward to page 340.

I am out of here to work for new public housing, a new public library, and a living wage in my town.
Linca

James,
What I am is a person who is doing everything he can to build community. In that book I linked you to there is the way to community, there is a way to achieve Aristotle’s definition of money. Without it community is impossible. Aristotle’s definition will lead to a reality that we can barely imagine.

If you get really interested I can link you to the website of our (Skype) book club. There you can listen to our chapter by chapter discussions, see our power point slides and read the references. There are 5 of us in the club.

I’ve started reading it and I’m interested. I’m skeptical but I’m always willing to pay some attention to a well presented argument. However, I’m a bit turned off by some of the author’s ad hominems. If Bentham insulted Aristotle, how could calling him a “pig” possibly prove you’re the bigger man? I have other criticisms but over all the book is quite fascinating and I’d be interested in checking out your book club. Is it in any way connected to the American Monetary Institute?

DissidentAug 18, 2014 @ 08:13:45

One problem with the feminist movement and the very term “feminist” itself is that, starting around the 1970s (at least, in earnest) both the movement and the very term itself were hi-jacked by other, mostly negative elements who used the political term to cash in on its popularity and significance for certain draconian agendas, the best known perhaps being the organized misandrists. Perhaps the best example of this type of shameless misandrist is the likes of Andrea Dworkin and her various ideological spawn & brethren (there are male misandrists too, let’s keep in mind… a good example being good old Mr. Xavier himself, the head honcho of the once-mighty Perverted Justice in the U.S.).

These individuals are very anti-male and often (though not always) quite anti-heterosexual, and they are fully deserving of the epithet given to them by the Right: “femi-nazis.” They often refer to themselves with the demarcation of “radical feminists,” though IMO they are not worthy of the term “feminist” at all. They are, plain and simply, *misandrists* who believe that male sexuality is inherently predatory and that anything female is as morally pure as the proverbial given snow. Their politics are not based on serving any form of social justice and female empowerment – both of which are noble ends – but rather the politics of revenge and hatred, and they are largely responsible for the rise of the victimology syndrome in Western society, but American society in particular. Popular American talk show hosts of both genders who thrived during the 1980s and early ’90s – in particular Oprah Winfrey and Montell Williams – are shining examples of this political species, and they had a major hand (though far from the only one) in promoting the type of vicious social mythology and misinformation campaigns that helped the pedo hysteria and suppression of youths grow into the powerful phenomenon it became over the past 30 years.

These “radical feminists” often go so far as to favor lesbian exclusionist policies when it comes to sexual expression for women, and of course they are very anti-pornography in a general sense, not wanting to accept the fact that many women enjoy this genre of film as well. Accordingly, they have no interest in changing and revolutionizing the institutions of society to eliminate all forms of inequality in a general sense, as do legitimate feminists; in contrast, they want to keep the current oligarchical and hierarchical power structures in society fully intact, and to simply invert the power disparity. In other words, they are not against the concept of hierarchy in and of itself, but they simply want to transform it from a patriarchy to a matriarchy, with the misguided notion that women would run our global economic dictatorships any more democratically or fairly than their male and/or heterosexual counterparts would. The history of women in high-ranking political positions that support the concept of hierarchy – e.g., Margaret Thatcher, Hillary Clinton, Indira Ghandi, Condoleeza Rice, Sarah Palin, etc. – fully put paid to that silly little notion that either gender is inherently morally superior to the other.

This is why many feminists of the legitimate stripe who genuinely support the end of hierarchy and full equality between the genders are now calling themselves *post-feminists,* to rightfully distance themselves from the misandrists of either gender who have twisted the original noble meaning of feminism. The misandrists have most definitely had much to do with the three and a half decades of anti-MAP and anti-youth sexual expression policies and witch-hunting, actually joining forces with conservative male power-mongers in this particular direction. This is because as unlikely allies as these two different types of power-mongers would seem to make, they both have exactly that important thing in common: The desire to control the sexuality of others; to set biased limits on the choices people of all ages and both genders are allowed to make; and to use repression and finger-pointing in place of democratic principles and policies of tolerance for any type of mutually consensual activity that does not infringe upon the rights and choices of others.

I personally consider myself an *egalitarian.* I support full gender, racial, ethnic, and orientation equality, and for people of any age to be judged according to their proven individual merits – just like individuals in general – without any arbitrary or moralistic factors obstructing this principle (e.g., “I know that people under 18 are capable of voting and working under humane conditions, but that doesn’t mean that they *should* be doing that, because… blah blah blah”). And I fully oppose the very concept of hierarchy itself, no matter what race, gender, sexual orientation, or age group hypothetically fill the position of “top dog.”

I have no quarrel with your characterisation of many of the less savory elements of the Feminist movement. However, this is a problem of any broad label. There are assholes who call themselves “post-feminist”, “Egalitarian” or “MRA”. Short of instituting a catechism, with members agreeing to every point in a list, the values of a movement will drift and its ranks with fill with vile people. Are we then to jump ship and hop from label to label as our enemies chase us away? I don’t think so. I’ve planted a flag in “Feminist” and I’m going to stand and fight.

At last, another post! Maybe now I can find someone to argue ethics with!

Firstly, I was completely unaware the Canada criminalised words. I really can’t imagine on what rational basis someone could censor a novel while calling it ‘protection’. Haven’t they ever heard of free speech?

Secondly, I also find it quite strange that the UK is following suit with the whole ‘Child Abuse Manual’ thing. The reason Neonazis and other Fascists are allowed to hold rallies and record music is because The West (save Germany) believes an individual is responsible for their own actions, even if other people are telling them to do it. Why is CSA different?

It’s also rather hypocritical since no one would ever suggest banning the worlds most popular child abuse manual. The one which has caused suffering for millions of children and manages to sum up its advice as “spare the rod; spoil the child.”

(BTW: IIRC, after God destroys Sodom for immorality, Lot goes up a mountain and has sex with both his young daughters. God responds to this with…. nothing. Thus, I assume the moral of the story is that God thinks Homosexuality is a sin but Paedophilia is A-OK.

(I originally used this in class as an example of how the Bible conflicted with my classmates’ moral intuitions and, thus, couldn’t actually be the ultimate source of their morality. However, you are free to make of this what you will.))

Thirdly, is all of Robin Sharpe’s fiction gay? I might want to read some 🙂
(I’m not really interested in Un Roman sentimental since I’m only attracted to girls/women who are older than me.)

And last, but not least: Robin has an incredible ability to constantly think positively! I’m pretty sure that If he were to stand in front of the gallows, he would be in a good mood and hope for the best…